Narrating the ‘Other’: Unreliability, Stereotyping, and Islamophobia in John Updike’s Terrorist (2006)

Abstract

The paper explores Updike’s novel Terrorist (2006) through the perspective of Phelan’s model of Unreliability (2005) to investigate the unreliability of the narrator. The article examines previous researches done on Terrorist (2006) from multiple perspectives and highlights the gaps. Moreover, it aims to investigate the unreliability of the narrator through three axes of communication, known as axis of facts and events, axis of perception and comprehension, and axis of ethics and values. With the help of these axes, the paper reveals the narrator’s misreporting, misinterpreting, and misevaluating with the intent to prove his unreliable account of the characters, scenarios, actions and events. Furthermore, the article is qualitative in nature and employs Catherine Belsey’s method of textual analysis (1980) to explore different types of unreliability embedded in the given text. The research article identifies inconsistencies in the narrator’s point of view and suggests that his narration is unreliable. It also finds the narration biased and racist, leading to Islamophobia and stereotyping of Muslims. For future recommendations, the present article encourages a semiotic analysis of Terrorist (2006) as well as a comparative perspective on social and cultural conditions of contemporary American society. With the help of such analysis, the underlying social and cultural perspectives in the novel can be examined, and their influence on the narrator can also be investigated.

 Keywords: Misreporting, misevaluating, misinterpreting, stereotypes, unreliability, literature